Ahhhhh....I think I get your point. You are talking about individual net effects. Being mucho attractive to the hot-to-go ladies because of a red plumage did the potential progeny no good because being red got you eaten before you could make any.
Would not the red plumage trait have a different individual net effects in a different locale. For example, the brothers of the first red Cardinal fly to farms in the next county (could happen) where the chicken farmers indiscriminately killed all the sharp shin hawks on sight. Now the red trait was good for the individual and it was good for the population for all the reason previously mentioned.
Would not the resulting total population (frequency of red plumage genes) of red male Cardinals be more accurately explained by the summation of the net effects (plural)of all the red male Cardinals in the example?
Last edited by carbon12; 11/18/09. Reason: addendum
